News flash: Consoles use electricity, could be lessened if turned off

A report released by the National Resources Defense Council states that videogame consoles suck up one billion dollars worth of energy annually. Putting a face on that number is easy. The 16 billion kilowatt-hours charging up the $1 billion tab equals the amount of electricity used by the people of sunny San Diego within the same timeframe.

The NRDC urges concerned videogame players (you are concerned now, by the way) to use the auto-shutdown features on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Microsoft’s Xbox 360 already has a nifty shutdown feature out of the box dubbed the “Red Ring of Death” by enthusiasts and a “godsend” by environmental activists.

At the end of the day the report really says nothing other than videogame players play videogames and ultimately their hardware sucks up energy. This energy could have been put to better use, like electrifying a duck-filled pond in order to watch a feather explosion.

I'm Brad Nicholson. I've been around, but Destructoid is where my dawgs at. You can see my work here, at MTV, at Giant Bomb or other great places around the Internet. I also run a podcast called ... more